An A-Z guide to the PC madness blighting modern Britain

Thursday 22 February 2007 12:07 BST

Does political correctness drive you mad? Is the mere thought of modern society's descent into a mire of cant and wet liberal dogma enough to make you foam at the mouth? Then prepare to smile at author JAMES DELINGPOLE'S dyspeptic A to Z guide to life in modern Britain.

A IS FOR ACCESS

The local authority obsession with making sure all members of the community have 'access' to the arts is the reason museums and galleries are forever wasting money on things such as 'graffiti art' or putting on 'community outreach projects'.

Isn't it tragic that people from council estates hardly ever go to the opera? Isn't it a crying scandal that museum and gallery attendance remains so stubbornly white and middle class? No, it's not. It just means we live in a country where we're still free to make our own cultural choices rather than having them force-fed by the state.

B IS FOR BBC2's DANCING WHEELCHAIRS LOGO Between programmes, three men in red perform pirouettes in their wheelchairs, challenging our prejudices about what it means to be disabled.

Yes, OK, we get the worthy message. But is it really something we need to have rammed down our throats every time we are sitting innocently at home watching telly?

C IS FOR CPS While the Crown Prosecution Service can always be relied on to prosecute you if you use racist language, show signs of homophobia or defend yourself against burglars breaking into your home, it appears hugely reluctant to bring cases against genuine criminals.

Perhaps its finest hour came in April 2006 when it chose to prosecute a tenyearold schoolboy who'd called his classmate 'Bin Laden'.

It used to be that 'diversity' meant 'a state of richness, variety and abundance'.

Now it is an excuse to persecute any activity that is deemed 'white' or 'middle class'.

So, diversity is why your children come home from school knowing more about Eid or Diwali than they do about Easter.

It's also why, if you apply for any kind of state funding for your church hall, cricket pavilion or bowling clubhouse, you won't get it - because the people who would benefit don't press the correct 'diversity' buttons.

E IS FOR ENVIRONMENTALISM

Bossy new-world religion based on the self-flagellating principle that unless we seriously inconvenience ourselves by giving up, or paying enormous taxes for the privilege of enjoying, all 21st-century comforts, from air travel to central heating, we will be personally responsible for destroying planet Earth.

F IS FOR FEET

(and Inches, Pounds, Ounces, Gallons, Pints).

Did you know that, from January 1, 2010, using these terms in Britain to describe weights and measures will become a criminal offence under EU law? It's true!

The new law is enshrined in the EU's Statutory Instruments regulations (55 & 85/2001).

G IS FOR GERMANS, THE

Supposedly our military allies. And now look at them. 'Nein.

Ve cannot commit more zen five soldiers und a pea-shooter to Afghanistan - even though ve are members of Nato und ought to be damned grateful for ze privilege'.

And don't even get me started on The French...

H IS FOR HOME INFORMATION PACK Ingenious torture scheme devised by John Prescott to punish people for moving house.

From June 1, it will be compulsory for anyone selling their home to put together an information pack, then waste £200 paying one of the Government's 4,000 new home inspection officers to check it.

A stealth tax? Needless, snooping, busy-bodying interference by a nanny state? You might say that - I couldn't possibly comment.

I IS FOR I DON'T MIND PAYING A BIT MORE IN TAXES... If it means greater social justice/a better NHS/improved education system. A noble idea, perhaps.

But after a decade of stealth taxes from Gordon Brown, you'd think we'd all have realised that increased taxation leads only to more waste, bureaucracy and inefficient state control, while failing to make anything that really matters any better.

J IS JENKINS, WOY Fat, Europhile snob with fake posh accent and affected claret habit now being roasted on a spit in the hottest part of hell for having invented the phrase: 'Cewebwate diversity.'

K IS FOR Mt KILIMANJARO

The eco lobby bang on about the great African mountain's vanishing ice cap as proof of global warming.

What they don't tell you is that research shows that Kili suffered its most dramatic glacial melt between 1912 and 1953.

Unfortunately, the world in that period was being distracted by trivia like two world wars and was consequently unable to give this catastrophic problem the hand-wringing attention it properly deserved.

L IS FOR LADDERS (People Falling Off) Police in Rochdale refused to inspect damage to a smashed stainedglass window after a break-in at a church because they did not have specialist 'ladder training'. Well, of course. Elf'n'Safety, innit.

M IS FOR MAYOR OF LONDON Which is it that irks the most, I wonder?

The way Ken Livingstone's marketing people promote the mayor as a kindly, avuncular figure whose only delight is to sit in his office dreaming up firework displays, rock concerts and such like?

Or is it the way that he bleeds motorists dry through the congestion charge, while cuddling up to Left-wing reactionaries such as the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez - a man who describes George Bush as being 'like Hitler'?

Surely, the whole point of having been born in Britain, rather than, say, Kim II Sung's North Korea, is that crackpot personality cults like this ought to be a distant nightmare?

N IS FOR NITTY GRITTY

When, at a 2002 Police Federation conference, Home Office Minister

John Denham suggested it was time to 'get down to the nitty gritty', he was warned by one police constable, Chris Jefford, that this phrase was politically unacceptable and could earn a disciplinary charge for racism. How so?

Because, Jefford explained, the phrase was thought to refer to slaves on the lowest decks of slave ships. Yet the first recorded use of the phrase was in 1954.

"It is inconceivable that it should have been around since the slave-ship days without someone writing it down," says internet lexicographer Michael Quinion.

It's on the police's banned list, though - obviously.

O IS FOR ORGANIC

LOOK, don't get me wrong. I'm as gullible as the next idiot. I'd rather feed my children organic than nonorganic food. But I do this only because I'm stupid and easily led.

Organic is one of the great con tricks of the age. A way of persuading wellmeaning, middle-class families to pay 40 per cent over the odds for pongy meat and blighted, misshapen vegetables, under the sad delusion that they will somehow make them feel better, healthier and happier.

P IS FOR PASSIONATE

"We're as passionate about business as we are about pleasure," trumpets a promotional website set up to market North-East England.

"Passionate about parks," declares South Tyneside local authority.

"I'm passionate about change in the public services," announces Tony Blair.

Rubbish, all of it. Aside from the utter fraudulence of all this declared passion, what sticks in the craw is the assumption that we're all so deeply immersed in the warm, slushy pool of post-Diana touchy-feelyness that passion trumps everything - intelligence, logic, reason, common sense, the lot.

Q IS FOR QUEEN, THE At the age of about 14 or 15, some of us go through an angry, antimonarchical phase. Then we grow up and realise: no, actually, the Queen is wonderful.

She's a rock of stability and dignity in an age of fickleness and hysterical emotionalism. She has sacrificed her personal life for a public one of never-ending duty.

And she is the reason why we are never going to have a President Tony Blair. Phew!

R IS FOR ROUTEMASTER BUS This design classic transformed a journey by public transport into something liberating and enjoyable.

You could hop on and off when you wanted. There was a conductor on board.

"Only some ghastly, dehumanised moron would want to get rid of the Routemaster," Ken Livingstone correctly observed in 2001 - which is why he had to ban it, obviously.

The Routemaster made its valedictory journey on December 9, 2005.

S IS FOR SMOKING Yes, smoking kills. But then so do fast cars, drink, sharks, Challenger tanks, Uzis and kitchen knives. And are we supposed to ban them as well?

Actually, don't answer that question if you are a health and safety zealot. I can guess the answer.

'Yes, yes, yes - ban them all! Ban everything that's fun! Ban everything that's dangerous! In fact, don't stop banning things until the only thing left to do is sip room temperature water from a cup made of splinter-free sustainable wood, eat tofu and watch grass grow.'

T IS FOR TRAFFIC WARDENS We've always hated them, of course. But amid our general loathing, we used to grudgingly admit that they were only doing their job.

But now? In an age where traffic wardens are happy to book us when we've just popped across the road to get more change to feed a meter that has just swallowed all our coins without giving us a ticket... well, it's war.

U IS FOR UNIFORMED BORDER CONTROL OFFICERS Immigration is spinning out of control and not even the Home Office has the faintest idea how many illegals have entered the country but, at last, the Government has a plan.

It proposes that instead ofwearing plain clothes, passport control officers should wear a uniform. "Zzzzplidj!" you can just imagine those Albanians saying.

"I was planning on coming to England to set up a new gangster network. But now I see from those smart navy-blue uniforms that the British mean business about immigration. I shall try somewhere else instead."

V IS FOR VICTIM Until recently, a victim was someone who had been mugged or assaulted.

Now there are six victim groups who have been officially recognised and granted special protection status: women, ethnic minorities, the disabled, non-Christians, the elderly and homosexuals.

According to the think-tank Civitas, this means that 73 per cent of the population can claim to be victimised.

W IS FOR WATER Do you think you're going to be allowed to use a hosepipe in your garden ever again? Dream on.

X IS FOR XMAS No, not the season of joy and goodwill to all men, but the season when the Elf'n'Safety brigade join hands with the PC zealots in a celebration of Nanny State absurdity.

Y IS FOR YOUR LOCAL COUNCIL Your local council is brilliant. You know because it tells you so on the lush and expensively produced brochure that drops through your letterbox each month.

But try getting any kind of benefit from the grand or more you fork out each year in council tax and you're in for a long wait.

Rubbish collections? Once a fortnight, if you're lucky. Neighbours holding a noisy party? Oh dear, your local council's Noise Hotline service operates only between 12pm and 1pm on Sundays during a leap year. And so on.

The reason? Your council is staffed by the sort of embittered Lefties, crazed Greens and loopy Lib-Dems too talentless to get jobs as traffic wardens or social workers, let alone as MPs.

Z IS FOR ZOOS

First to go are the elephants, phased out under pressure from animal welfare activists. The giraffes disappear next. Then the big cats.

Pretty soon all that will be left for children to see will be the goats, the ants in the insect enclosure and the massive, great gift shop full of jigsaws, mugs and toys depicting all the fun, exciting creatures that used to be on display before zoos came over all worthy and animal rights and PC.

EXTRACTED from How To Be Right by James Delingpole, published by Headline on March 5 at £12.99. To order a copy (P&P free), tel: 0870 161 0870.